03 août 2005

The WOMAD festival rocked across the UK on Sunday July 31st August when reggae superstar Apache Indian took to the main stage and entertained over 50 000 to probably one of his finest ever performances and too make WOMAD even hotter when The Dhol Foundation made a surprise appearance with the main man, Johnny Kalsi at the helm. A 15 000 audience watched the king of Dhol go wild on stage and at one point, fans were asked to not make so much noise as they we’re drowning out the main stage audience of about 50 000.

Apache Indian headlined the Sunday festival and gave workshops for the younger fans of Womad generation. Apache performed live alongside his now legendary musicians, The Reggae Revolution Band. Ten tracks were played, starting off with classics such as Movie Over India and Chok There and then taking people through various songs from his new album “Time For Change”.

As part of his live set, Apache also spoke to the audience about the world we lived in and how we must all work together to end racism and violence which immediately led to a rapturous applause from the WOMAD crowd. He finished his set with three classics including his new single Israelites, followed by two of his former chart hits Boom Shak-alak and Ruggermuffin Girl.

Johnny Kalsi of the Dhol Foundation hosted the BBC Radio 3 Village stage over the three days. The stage featured live acoustic sets of acts from all over the globe including Syria, Palestine Argentina, Korea, Uganda, France and Iraq with a live broadcast on BBC Radio 3 each night. Johnny introduced each act over the three days and acted as an ambassador for WOMAD, which meant running around the festival to give various interviews for radio, tv and press in between introducing all the Village stage to crowds of 15 000 plus.

Over the three days the Dhol Foundation new album sold out at the WOMAD store and after various requests and constant demands by fans who had seen Johnny perform over the years, he decided to bow down to pressure and gave a live performance towards the end of Village stage line up. Performing tracks from Drum-believable drove the crowd to scenes of mass cheers and shouts of Johnny. As a finale to his set, he finished off with a track taken from this current album, which is a cross between traditional Punjabi dhol beats and Celtic sounds of the fiddle